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Friday, January 09, 2009
Ind. Courts - "Gary court, clerk fight for jobs"
That is the headline to this story today by Christine Kraly of the NWI Times.
GARY | A pair of officials integral to Gary's legal system are asking to keep their jobs as budget cuts loom.Gary City Clerk Suzette Raggs and City Court Judge Deidre Monroe denounced the potential ax looming over the city's court. To transfer the city's cases to the county would be an impossible feat, they said.
"I don't want to be the last judge in Gary City Court," Monroe said Thursday.
Gary officials have pleaded to the Indiana Distressed Unit Appeals Board for relief from new tax caps that threaten to pluck $30.3 million from the city's 2009 budget.
In its downstate plea, the city proposed four years of alternate budget cuts, including $6 million in 2012, when the city would eliminate the City Court.
According to Monroe, only the Gary City Council has the power to create or eliminate the court.
Abolishing the court would mean the clerk would only handle City Council business, prompting a staff level drop from the current 42 to possibly a maximum of 10, the city's board petition states.
"While our city is undeniably in a fiscal crisis, the petition package that has been presented contains eliminations and reductions that would literally be catastrophic for the citizens of Gary," Raggs said in a statement.
The court and clerk process 20,000 new cases a year, with 70,000 pending cases, the women said.
"It is impossible to pass that on (to another department)," Monroe said.
Gary shuttered its jail this month, a move embraced by appeals board members but deemed "a nightmare" by Monroe.
Lake County Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez has said the move, which should bring between 60 and 100 detainees a week to the Lake County Jail, could cost county taxpayers $2 million a year.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 9, 2009 09:09 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts